


A Song in the Stillness

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Light Angst, Misunderstandings, Poetry, Requited Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26224759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: There are a lot of good reasons for Cassandra to hate Fade rifts. Adamant gives her another.
Relationships: Female Adaar/Cassandra Pentaghast
Comments: 9
Kudos: 53
Collections: Black Emporium 2020





	A Song in the Stillness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sweettasteofbitter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweettasteofbitter/gifts).



> In the Fade, the gravestone with Cassandra's greatest fear says "helplessness," and I wanted to explore that a bit. Which of course means putting her in a situation where she's helpless, because I'm mean.

Cassandra dislikes Fade rifts as soon as she's close enough to the first one to feel its power crackling over her skin like the threat of lightning. It hisses not just in her ears but in her mind, a vicious whisper too low to make out words, reminding her of every time she's been helpless when it mattered. It reminds her of the Conclave, and the green fire that washed out everything, even the screams of the dying.

So she dislikes Fade rifts immediately, but she doesn't actually hate them until Adamant. Until someone else she cares for disappears in a flash of green, while all she can do is watch it happen. Helpless. Useless. Again.

A demon strikes at her, and she blocks its claws automatically, not thinking, hardly looking. Her body moves, sword lashing out at whatever's between her and the place where the rift was, but her mind sees nothing except that virulent green light as it explodes outward only to collapse in on itself and disappear. Her chest feels like it's trying to do the same thing, explode or collapse or both, as she watches the rift open and close, open and close. Always with those dark shadows cast against the light, bodies tumbling down to vanish into the Fade.

Her body moves, but all her mind can do is scream.

Then there are no more demons, and the only Wardens she can see are kneeling, throwing aside their weapons and holding up their empty hands in surrender. Around her, soldiers begin to collect up weapons and prisoners both, but Cassandra keeps moving, her mind and her body finally back in step. Forward. She needs to go forward, as if standing where the rift was will allow her to change the past.

Except it doesn't. Beneath the dying shimmers of the rift, the ground is scorched and the air full of the smell of demons, the same as every other rift she's seen. And the same as every other rift, what Cassandra wants has no effect on anything. The curving tendrils of light continue to dim, like the last embers of a fire disappearing slowly beneath the ashes, and there's none of the prickling energy she's learned to associate with an active rift. Other than the twisting green light that's already so faint she can hardly see it, she could be standing anywhere in Adamant, rather than in the one place where she was reminded--again--what it feels like to be powerless.

She tears her gaze away from the fading light and glances around the courtyard. The soldiers have things well in hand, and the sounds of fighting are dying down. They don't need her anymore, not for this, which means she's free to pull off her helmet and kneel on the flagstones, her gauntleted hands clenched into fists and her forehead pressed against them until the edges of the metal cut her skin. Every verse of the Chant she ever learned, every prayer she whispered until the words felt tattooed on the inside of her skin: all of them abandon her. She can only remember one word right now.

_Please._

_Please, Maker._

_Please, Andraste._

_Please._

Someone asks her a question, but the voice isn't the one she wants to hear, so she ignores it. More voices, the rhythm of questions and answers, then someone kneels heavily beside her in a rattle of armor.

"I have heard the sound," someone recites in a low voice, "a song in the stillness, the echo of Your voice, calling creation to wake from its slumber."

Cassandra clutches at the words the way she wants to clutch at the edges of the rift. She doesn't have the power to tear it open again, but maybe, if she says these words enough, the rift will open anyway. Maybe she isn't helpless after all.

"How can we know You?" she whispers, matching her cadence to the other voices picking up the Chant around her. "In the turning of the seasons, in life and death, in the empty space where our hearts hunger for a forgotten face?"

 _Not forgotten,_ she prays silently, even as her mouth forms the words of the next verse. _Please, Maker, not forgotten._

The words of the Chant wrap around her, familiar and comforting and yet still futile. The rift is completely gone now, no hint it was ever here except the dead demons around them. Even if she had the power, there's nothing for her to grab onto, not anymore.

Gone or not, she can still hear the rift whispering to her, taunting her with a single word: helpless.

"Though all others may forget You," she recites, raising her voice a little in the vain hope it might drown out the rift, "Your name is etched into my every step. I will not forsake You, even if I forget myself."

She's so busy trying to ignore the hissing voice of the rift, she doesn't realize at first that it's real and not a figment of her imagination. It isn't until someone grabs her arm and yanks her to one side that she understands.

Her eyes snap open and her head up, and _yes_. Green light tangles like a child playing a game with string, and just like those games, what appeared to be a knotted mess changes in a blink into a clear pattern. The strands of the rift stretch wide between invisible fingers, and a figure stumbles out as if that wasn't empty space a moment ago.

Cassandra is on her feet, fists clenched again, but this time it's for an entirely different reason. Hope is as brutal as hopelessness, her eyes watering as she squints against the rift's glare and tries to make out details, a struggle made harder by the way she has to fight to keep her balance in the crowd. The courtyard is rapidly descending into chaos, people jostling each other as the ones closest to the rift try to back away to a safe distance, and the ones in the back try to get closer for a better view.

Cullen bellows an order, then another, and the press of bodies disappears so abruptly Cassandra almost loses her balance. When she regains her footing and looks up, shame-faced soldiers are falling into formation, clearing the area around the rift of everyone except the Inquisitor's inner circle. More figures are staggering out of the rift, blurred shadows against the light, until it snaps closed as abruptly as it opened, leaving everyone blinking away the afterimages.

The person who was last through the rift straightens slowly, easing upright as if everything hurts. A faint green glow emanates from one of their hands, before they close their fist and snuff it out completely.

There's a pause like an indrawn breath, and Cassandra can feel the moment teetering on the edge of another descent into chaos. Cullen must feel it, too, because he barks at the soldiers, "Hold position!" and the moment passes.

Adaar rolls her shoulders and grins crookedly. "Good to see you, too."

The soldiers cheer, but since they also stay in formation, Cullen doesn't try to silence them. Or maybe he recognizes it for a wasted effort: Cassandra doesn't think she could hear _herself_ if she shouted, much less someone a dozen steps away.

Not that she'll be doing any shouting right now: she's too busy hugging Adaar, and when did she cross the distance between them, anyway? It doesn't matter. All that matters is Adaar, alive and--relatively--safe.

Cassandra's lungs unlock for what feels like the first time since the rift swallowed Adaar up, but the rush of returning air brings with it an awareness of more than her own relief. All around them, people are hugging and cheering, but Adaar is completely still. Her arms went around Cassandra on instinct when Cassandra hugged her, but her body is rigid now, her hug stiff and unnatural.

"Apologies," Cassandra blurts out, lurching back from Adaar. What was she thinking? Adaar has never been physically demonstrative, not with Cassandra, and now Cassandra has forced that unwanted closeness on her. "I...it's good you're safe."

"Cassandra," Adaar begins, but whatever she was going to say gets lost in another round of cheering. People are jostling them again, even with the soldiers all still at attention, and Cassandra is only too happy to let herself be shunted toward the back of the small crowd.

Back here, no one can see the mortified blush heating her face. Adaar has always been standoffish with her, their conversations usually awkward and halting, their relationship forever marred by their first meeting. Cassandra can hardly blame anyone who didn't want to be friends with someone who once imprisoned them, and so she's done her best to respect Adaar's obvious wish for distance. That Adaar seems determined to drag her along everywhere hasn't made it easy, but until now, Cassandra likes to think she hasn't done too poor a job.

Until now.

The flush, which had begun to fade, spreads across her cheeks again. Fortunately, everyone's attention is fixed on Adaar, giving Cassandra all the time she needs to regain her composure. Which she'll be able to do just as soon as she stops remembering the way Adaar stiffened at her embrace.

###

It gets easier for a little while, as she listens to Adaar recount what happened in the Fade and then to the others' excited speculations. She even manages to contribute a few thoughts of her own, but it's a relief when Adaar calls a halt to the conversation.

"Tomorrow," she says, rubbing a knuckle against one temple. No surprise if her head aches, after everything that's happened. "We're all tired, and we'll think better for some sleep."

Cassandra wants to brush Adaar's hands aside and put her own there to soothe that sharp crease between her eyebrows. Instead, she grips the hilt of her sword and slips away from the others.

At her tent, she strips off her armor and cleans it more thoroughly than she's cleaned any armor since the last time she was forced to do it as a punishment more than a decade ago. When that's finished, she washes herself just as thoroughly, if with less force than she applied to metal and leather. Maybe if she takes long enough, her heart will have slowed enough for her to sleep by the time she's done.

It hasn't.

After a full watch spent staring at the tent canvas above her cot, Cassandra abandons the effort with a sigh and gets up again. Most of the camp will be asleep, at least, so maybe she can walk out her nerves with no one the wiser.

That proves to be another plan doomed to failure: as soon as she emerges from her tent, the first person she sees is Adaar, standing by the fire with her arms crossed over her chest and her gaze fixed on the middle distance.

Cassandra steps sideways, hoping to escape the circle of torches before Adaar spots her, but no luck: the instant she moves, Adaar's head jerks around, her body tensing for a fight. She relaxes only marginally when she sees who it is, which makes Cassandra feel even worse.

"I thought you would be asleep by now," Cassandra says, because she has to say something.

"Me, too," Adaar says with a forced smile. Everything about her is wary, from her tight expression to her crossed arms to the way she keeps her body turned slightly away. "Just haven't been able to stop thinking long enough."

"You have a lot to think about."

"I do." Her expression is unreadable, but the way her marked hand flexes on her upper arm says plenty.

Concerned, Cassandra watches her fist clench and release. She remembers the way the mark nearly killed Adaar after the explosion, and while she didn't care then, she cares very much now. "Is it hurting again?"

"A little," Adaar admits, re-crossing her arms so the marked hand is hidden. "But I'm all right."

"Are you?" Cassandra asks. Normally she wouldn't pursue the subject when Adaar so clearly wants to avoid it, but tonight isn't exactly normal, even by the Inquisition's standards.

Adaar presses the fingers of her unmarked hand to her temple, and Cassandra is struck again by the urge to touch her, to rub away the tension radiating off her.

"We weren't meant to walk the Fade in the flesh," Adaar murmurs, which is hardly reassuring. Her gaze is distant, abstracted, and her fingers press harder against her temple for a moment. "I don't ever want to do it again."

Alarmed, Cassandra leans forward, gripping the hilt of her sword as she tries to decide whether she should go to Adaar or stay where she is.

The movement pulls Adaar's attention back to her and earns her another strained smile. "It was odd," Adaar says, "but I'm fine."

"You scared me," Cassandra blurts out. She squeezes her sword hilt harder, embarrassed not so much by the words as by the harshness of her tone. Anyone would have been afraid, watching a friend fall into a Fade rift, but her voice revealed more than she wanted it to.

"I scared me, too," Adaar admits.

"You fell," Cassandra says, unable to stop herself. "You fell, and I could do _nothing_."

"Ah." Adaar is studying her like something Cassandra said has a deeper meaning. "You were helpless?"

"Yes," Cassandra snaps. "And I do not like being helpless."

She regrets the words as soon as they're out, or at least, she regrets her tone. Adaar didn't fall on purpose, and it isn't fair to be angry with her over it, no matter how sick Cassandra feels.

Adaar opens her mouth to say something, but Cassandra cuts her off gently. "My apologies," she says. "That was uncalled for."

"Don't worry about it," Adaar says. "We're all a little tense right now."

She looks more than a little tense: her body is almost as rigid as it was when Cassandra hugged her earlier, and one fist is clenched in the sleeve of her shirt.

With a start, Cassandra realizes that she hasn't been paying nearly as much attention as she should have been. Somewhere in the course of their conversation, she walked forward, and she's now close enough to touch Adaar if she wanted to. Which she does, except Adaar looks like she might jump out of her skin at the mere suggestion of it.

If Cassandra is apologizing, she might as well be thorough. "I apologize for earlier, as well," she says.

Adaar cocks her head to one side, still tense but also puzzled. "For what?"

"When you first came out of the rift." Cassandra doesn't want to have this conversation, but the tension in Adaar's shoulders makes it obvious there's no avoiding it. "I should have respected your desire not to have others so close to you."

"My what?" Adaar now looks completely confused. It's better than tense, but not right, either.

Cassandra hesitates, trying to choose her words carefully. She doesn't want to sound accusatory, nor does she want to reveal how much she wishes things were different between them. All of which would be easier if she wasn't exhausted and wound tight at the same time.

"Wait," Adaar says while Cassandra is still struggling to put her thoughts in order5. "You think I don't like it when people get close to me?" At Cassandra's nod, Adaar huffs out a sharp breath. "I never said that!"

"You've made it clear enough." Which is both accusatory and too revealing, making it a complete failure. Ugh.

"I don't...I mean, that's not...do you really...?" Adaar presses the heels of her palms against her eyes and growls in frustration. _"Words."_ Her tone makes it into an obscenity.

"It's all right," Cassandra says. It isn't, but it will be less all right if this conversation is allowed to continue. "I take no offense, Inquisitor." She feels a lot of things about the ever-present tension between them--regret, frustration, sorrow--but offense has never been one of them.

"Inquisitor?" Adaar asks, dropping her hands from her face to give Cassandra an incredulous look. "When did we go back to that?"

Right after Cassandra forgot herself and hugged Adaar. The title is a good reminder of the distance between them that Cassandra needs to respect.

"Look," Adaar says before Cassandra can think of a suitable reply. "I think maybe I haven't been very clear."

"You were," Cassandra objects, "and I should have-"

"Wait," Adaar says. It's a plea, not an order, and her expression begs for something Cassandra would gladly give, if she knew what it was. "Just...wait?"

She takes a half step toward her tent without taking her eyes off Cassandra. When Cassandra says nothing, too confused and too tired to guess the correct response, Adaar adds urgently, "Please?"

"Of course," Cassandra says automatically. What else can she say, with Adaar giving her that look?

"Wait right there," Adaar says, as if Cassandra might decide to wait somewhere else.

Cassandra nods encouragingly, and Adaar dashes into her tent. The camp is quiet enough Cassandra can hear things being tossed around, presumably Adaar upending her bags in search of something. Nothing fragile, Cassandra hopes.

Adaar reappears clutching--of all things--a small book, which she waves at Cassandra as she bounds across the space between them. It startles Cassandra into an involuntary step back, unused to having Adaar come so close so fast.

At her retreat, Adaar looks crestfallen and goes to pull the book into her chest, but she stops when Cassandra puts on hand on it. Cassandra makes no attempt to grab it, just gives Adaar a quizzical look.

"I got this for you," Adaar says. "But then...well...I wasn't sure how you felt. About me. And I didn't want to give it to you if..." She waves her free hand as if Cassandra is supposed to somehow fill in the gap.

Maybe if she was well-rested and not still occasionally twitching at the memory of Adaar disappearing into the rift, Cassandra would be up to the challenge. As it is, all she can do is prompt, "If...?"

Adaar swallows audibly. For someone who can be brave to the point of recklessness in a fight, she's startingly uncertain whenever she talks to Cassandra. Shy, Cassandra would have called it in anyone who didn't stride across a battlefield like nothing could hurt her.

An idea begins to coalesce in the back of Cassandra's head. It does nothing for her heartrate, but she doesn't care.

Very carefully, giving Adaar plenty of time to react, Cassandra takes the book away. Adaar is breathing too fast, but she doesn't try to hold on.

"I'm no good with words," Adaar says softly. Her now-empty hand grips the front of her tunic, tugging hard at the fabric. "So I thought maybe I could borrow someone else's."

Cassandra turns toward the closest torch, tilting the book back and forth as she tries to read the title embossed on the spine. The gold leaf is difficult to make out in the flickering light, and her eyes are so tired they ache, but eventually she finds the right angle and nearly drops the book in surprise.

" _Carmenum di Amatus._ " Too stunned to think properly, Cassandra adds, "I thought this one was banned."

"I, um, might have found a copy." Adaar looks equal parts terrified and hopeful, but then her face falls. "This wasn't exactly how I meant to give it to you, though."

"Oh?" Cassandra asks, her voice strangled.

A wave of Adaar's hand indicates the camp around them and Adamant in the distance. "For one thing, there were supposed to be a lot fewer soldiers around. Fewer demons, too."

"At least the demons are all dead," Cassandra says. It's inane, but she can't think of anything more intelligent.

"True," Adaar says with a nervous laugh. "Good to know there was a way I could have picked a worse time."

"I don't understand," Cassandra says. "Why?"

"I hoped that would be obvious," Adaar says. She's looking more anxious by the moment, her fingers knotted tightly together.

Cassandra just stares at her, because yes, it is obvious, and yet, she would have said Adaar's discomfort around her was equally obvious.

"I've liked you since we met." A smile flashes across Adaar's face and is gone. "All right, maybe I didn't _like_ you when we first met, but I remember thinking that if someone was going to kill me, there were plenty of worse options."

"What?"

"You're so...so..." Adaar shakes herself like she's trying to shake the words into place. "I mean, I didn't know you then, but you were strong and you were beautiful and you were ready to take on every demon in the Fade to fix a mess you didn't make. And then later, after you stopped locking me up, and I got to know you, and I got to see you fight, I just..."

Cassandra blinks hard at her, feeling like she missed a step going down stairs.

"Maker, I'm terrible at this." Adaar makes a face. "Which is why I never said anything. Well, one of the reasons."

"What were the others?"

There's a long silence, Adaar frowning worriedly at her. "You were uncomfortable around me," Adaar says at last. "And I didn't know why. And I was afraid to ask."

"I thought you were afraid of nothing."

"Just of talking," Adaar says ruefully. "Falling into the Fade was less terrifying." She tips her chin at the book resting in Cassandra's hands. "It's why I wanted to steal someone else's words. I thought it would be easier."

Cassandra looks down at the book, then back up in surprise when Adaar reaches out and very delicately opens the book to page marked with a bit of ribbon. There's a small piece of paper tucked inside, covered in Adaar's precise, unadorned handwriting, but the paper is turned sideways and impossible to read from Cassandra's angle.

"I was going to recite this one," Adaar says. "But it, um, wasn't quite right for you. Me." Her eyes lift from the page to meet Cassandra's. "Us? So I made a couple changes."

Heart thumping, Cassandra turns the piece of paper around and tilts the book to bring it into the light.

"Her lips on mine speak words not voiced," she reads aloud, then stops, reminded suddenly of the prayer she recited earlier, when she thought Adaar was gone forever. Now her mouth forms the words again, without conscious thought.

"I have heard the sound, a song in the stillness," she murmurs, and this time, it isn't a plea for the Maker's mercy, "the echo of Your voice, calling creation to wake from its slumber."

Adaar is very close, the book the only thing keeping them apart, and Cassandra feels very much like she's waking up. Like Adaar is calling her to wake up, because these might be someone else's words, but Cassandra can hear the echo of Adaar's voice in them.

"There were supposed to be flowers." Despite the apologetic words, Adaar is starting to smile. "Candles, too."

Her cheek is warm under Cassandra's fingers. "You had it all planned out, then."

"There might have been strategy meetings."

"Like a military campaign?"

Adaar starts to laugh. "I wasn't supposed to say that, was I? This is why-...oh!"

The surprised noise she makes when Cassandra kisses her changes almost immediately into a pleased hum. There's an awkward scramble as they both try to move the book in opposite directions to get it out of the way, and then they're both laughing. The book is still in the way--a corner of it is jabbing uncomfortably into Cassandra's ribs--but that's not what has them breaking apart sooner than either of them wants.

That honor is reserved for a pair of soldiers making their rounds, and Cassandra doesn't know who's most embarrassed: her, Adaar, or the soldiers.

"A-apologies, Inquisitor," one of the soldiers stammers, already backing up. "We, um, didn't mean to-...That is, we'll just-"

"It's fine," Adaar says with a smile. "You were doing your job, you don't need to apologize for that. We were just on our way to bed, anyway."

A tilt of her eyebrows asks Cassandra a question, and Cassandra replies by taking a step toward Adaar's tent like it's the most natural thing in the world. Adaar beams at her, the soldiers forgotten. Over Adaar's shoulder, Cassandra catches a quick glimpse of an amused smile on one of the soldiers' faces, but it's not the face she's most concerned with right now.

Not even close.


End file.
